Along with the release of the Windows 7 release candidate came new system requirements for Microsoft's next operating system. This updated set of requirements has been declared final, making them the official system requirements for Windows 7 final. Seeing Microsoft's rather... Dubious past dealings with minimum system requirements, let's take a look at Windows 7's.

The XP minimal requirements are just as ridiculous as that of Vista... unless all you do is play minesweeper.

To be fair to Microsoft - not something I say very often - XP originally ran pretty well with that specification. The problems only started when you added anti-virus software; and remember that when XP was launched many home PCs weren't connected to the internet so antivirus wasn't a necessity.

Of course, after several years of service packs, XP is now barely usable with 512MB of RAM. But a fully patched copy of XP is hugely different from the 2003 version.

Aye. I have a fully stripped down XP SP3 install on my netbook that boots up using 137 MB of RAM. There is no way you could run XP-SP3 out of the box in 128 MB of RAM, it’s just not possible. 512 MB at least when you add apps.

remember that when XP was launched many home PCs weren't connected to the internet so antivirus wasn't a necessity.

I'm not entirely sure whether to laugh or cry by this grossly uninformed statement. Appearently, some (young?) people actually think that before the internet, there were no virusses. Am I that old, I wonder?